Ineth

Republican candidates with the necessary disposition/charm/self-discipline/integrity to not be an embarrassment as president: Carly Fiorina Marco Rubio Republican candidates whose politics are not mostly evil: Rand PaulToo bad there's no overlap between those two lists.

Yeah, there does seem to be an unfortunate pattern there. Not among aGG as a whole, but among some of the "twitter celebrities" of aGG; the generals of their army in this flame-war, so to speak. The pattern seems to be: Involved in the nastiest depths of internet subculture in their youth (paedophilia chatrooms, Hitler worship, etc.). Then "grew up" and "saw the light", converting to the "righteous cause" of social justice. Now projecting the actions of their youth onto the current generation of Internet kids and gamers, prejudging them all to be vile scum who deserve a good beating. All the while, they don't realize that being underhanded and merciless in the name of social justice is no better than being a terrible person in the name of other forms of bigotry. At the same time, though, I agree with Amentep that GG did not handle the Nyberg story well. Milo's article seemed petty and aimed at character assassination rather than protecting children. And the dogpiling that followed by GG'ers against Nyberg and her supporters, didn't really help anything.

Oh, you're right! The numbers in the combat log tooltip do make more sense. I was looking at the character record screen all this time.

Here you go: https://yadi.sk/d/Kl8XiAMpioJva Instead of my heavily developed and respecced Barbarian, this savegame features only Edér in addition to the Paladin who has the "Coordinated Attacks" ability. Attack the Mercenary and Knight who are conveniently standing right next to them. This is what happens when I do: Before combat starts, Edér's accuracy is listed as 56 in his character sheet. When combat starts, it immediately jumps to 66 for no apparent reason - no matter who is attacking whom. Letting him attack the same target as the Paladin, changes nothing. After combat ends, it's remains at 66. So I maybe it's not that "Coordinated Attacks" doesn't do anything, but rather that it does too much?

Is it true that... all stat checks in dialogs use the protagonist's stats all stat checks in scripted interactions allow you to choose which character's stats will be checked or are there exceptions?

Thanks for checking, @lonelornfr. Are you using the same game version? I created my Paladin with v2.00, and then upgraded to v2.01. Don't remember whether I took that ability before or after upgrading. I also used the IE Mod for a bit with in v2.00, but not currently. Could that have messed things up?

This "Coordinated Attacks" paladin ability does not seem to work for me: I've selected it for my Paladin during level-up, but I've never seen an accuracy difference in my Barbarian (who is pretty much always the closest ally) depending on whether or not he's attacking the same target as the Paladin. Nor have I ever seen it pop up under "Active Effects" in the Barbarian's character sheet. Am I missing something, or is this ability currently broken? --- Game version: 2.01.0721 PX1 Platform: Linux

What makes you so sure? I think it's much more likely that in a significantly more free-market and small-government society than we have today, mega-corporations would be unsustainable, and would have to give way to a much larger number of smaller (more flexible & competitive) companies. You have a different set of regulations (not to mention different external conditions). In many ways (that matter) you actually have very high economic freedom compared to the rest of the world. (Note that the meme of calling Scandinavian countries "socialist" does not stem from your level of economic freedom, but rather from the size of your welfare state and from certain social policies.) Of course, the high taxation that goes along with the huge welfare states brings problems too. Scandinavia got rich thanks to the free-market reforms of the 19th century; the 'big welfare state' part of the equation actually crept in much later, only a few decades ago. So the empirical evidence on whether that part will "ruin things" or be sustainable in the long term, is still out. In any case, I think it's generally safer to skim off the top of what a machine produces ("taxation") than to take an iron bar and ram it into the machine's gears ("corporatist anti-competitive regulations"). IP isn't actually a kind of property right. It's a just a misleading name that smart industry lobbyists have made up for certain corporatist laws so that congress would pass them without looking too closely.

Ah yes the "my perfect version of capitalism would not have these flaws" meme. I'm not talking about a version of today's economic system ("capitalism") under ideal conditions or something, I'm talking about a different system1 - one where the government's involvement is strictly limited and fundamentally respects individual liberty (including property rights) and free markets. I'm saying such a system under real-world conditions would not rely on repression, while socialism does. They'd be wrong. Yes, this is the silly argument that socialists would have to make in order to "say exactly the same thing" about socialism, but no, it's not the argument I'm making. Because that's the thing: In a free market system, you don't have to rely on people being nice enough to choose not to oppress you - they simply wouldn't have the tools to do so. Socialism is doomed to totalitarianism because it puts the power of allocating other people's resources and managing other peoples lives in the hands of a few. And no matter how fairly 'elected' those few are ("democratic socialism"), they won't be immune to corruption, and there's nothing that you can do to stop them. Whereas in a free-market system, everyone manages their own lives and own resources, in voluntary exchange and cooperation. Others can be **** to you and try to make things difficult for you, but they could never reach the level of power over you that a centrally-planning government could. They'd all be subject to the same civil and criminal law as you. Hence, no repression. ----- 1) Though, luckily, compatible with the US constitution.

And capitalism is not? If you use the word capitalism to refer to the worst manifestations of the mixed-economy corporatism of today's Western world, then sure. If you use it to refer to an actual free-market system, then no, it would not be those things. Same to you. Corporatocracy and repressive monopolies are possible today because of a large government and its oversized jungle of rules and regulation, not in spite of it.

I gotta agree with Wrath there. Even if socialism is initially established through democratic means, the violence and human rights abuses will follow sooner or later: Socialism, in its aspiration to manage society top-down, is intrinsically repressive and authoritarian, and from there it's a small step towards totalitarianism - a step that will always be taken as long as it relies on filling its central planning and leadership positions with human beings ("power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"). And on the practical side of things, socialism's economic theories are based on ideal-world assumptions ("perfect humans"; "greed and rent-seeking won't exist"; "incentives aren't a thing") and wishful thinking ("surely via state-controlled education and media we can program people to behave like that"). They don't work in reality. In reality, prohibiting private citizens from owning means of production and replacing profit-motivated economic activity with bureaucratic central planning, does not bring about a workers' paradise - it brings about scarcity. And in order to keep up the charade, the leaders of such a "democratic socialist" state need someone to blame for that 'unexpected' onset of scarcity and approaching humanitarian crisis - they need conspiracy theories about sabotage by "bourgeoisie elements" and "class enemies", they need to stop people from listening to investigative journalists who report on the scarcity, etc. And in such an environment, laws to end free speech and persecute the opposition practically pass themselves. --- If you're blind to history (with its many socialist experiments that all turned out the same way), then at least learn from current events - all of the above can currently be observed playing out step by step in Venezuela. After having reached scarcity in pretty much all essential goods, they're now at the stage where... opposition politicians are being thrown in jail for trumped-up charges or simply banned from participating in the upcoming election, private homes are being raided by the military for suspicions of "hoarding food items", peaceful university student activists are targeted by prosecutors with allegations of "destabilizing the government", media outlets and journalists are being subjected to systematic "censorship and intimidation", and TV and radio is "now almost entirely dominated by the government and its obligatory announcements". ...and things are headed to get worse from here. This, ladies and gents, is "democratic socialism" put into practice. --- So: Sorry, but I can't overlook Sander's unabashed support of socialism as some sort of peculiar but charming quirk, or something that I should pretend is just a funny way of saying "liberal" in his case. He calls himself a socialist and really means it, and that matters. Bernie Sander's socialism is like Ron Paul's racist newsletters IMO - it makes someone who'd otherwise be a much needed authentic anti-establishment candidate, unelectable.

Dunno, I think if handled professionally (just like the organizers of an open air concert would), the racism allegation would only be brought up by an extreme fringe (if at all) and would not stick. I mean, there's a reason why the activists don't target, say, Donald Trump's rallies (another wealthy old cis gendered white man): They wouldn't get away with it, not even as a way to make him look (more) racist. They'd be intercepted swiftly before even getting on the stage. And if they did manage to get on the stage, Trump would personally tell them to **** off 'till they'd walk away dumbfounded, and he'd do it in a way that would make the audience laugh and he could use to spin the whole thing to his favour. I hear this wasn't Sander's own rally though, he was just one of three invited speakers - so I don't blame him for going along with the organizer's decision to indulge the activists. It's the organizer's decision that I find puzzling.

Why on earth did the organizers concede the mic to them, rather than having them escorted off the stage? Don't they know that capitulating to bullies will just invite further bullying?

The music ITT is not sad enough. Lemme fix that.

No, corporations like Monsanto have caused issues for poor farmers. It's a cheap propaganda ploy by the eco movement, to try to pin the misconducts of Monsanto, on the whole concept of GMO science itself - which the eco movement had already made up its mind against from the start (for quasi-religious rather than rational reasons). Not in general, they aren't. The "sterile seed" technology was specifically engineered by Monsanto as sort of the equivalent of what we know as "DRM" in the gaming world. They wanted to protect their monopoly on the distribution of "their" species. I believe that's now banned in most parts of the world though (thanks to international treaties/conventions), and Monsanto has promised not to use it anymore (thanks to public outcry). There are non-commercial GMO species though - either developed by corporations for positive publicity, or developed by independent university researchers and NGOs - which were designed to help poor farmers rather than to maximize the profits for some corporation. Yet the eco movement furiously opposes those, too. They break into labs to destroy research; they burn down trial fields; they intimidate and attack researchers; they use their influence on 1st world politics and bureaucracy to stall and block the projects; they spread FUD in the third-world countries where the crops could be used. A 2014 peer-reviewed study found that "the delayed application of Golden Rice in India alone has cost 1,424,000 life years since 2002". (Life years is a measure used by economists to aggregate both premature death and disability that could have been avoided). Each year hundreds of thousands of children died, hundreds of thousands more went blind, hundreds of thousands of women died in childbirth, and countless families were kept in poverty - all so that the first-world eco activists who control organizations like Greenpeace could indulge their technophobic and misanthropic "Gaia" religion.

Interesting. If I read the Wikipedia entry correctly, that law was meant to regulate plant/animal trade across state boundaries, and has in practice been expanded to punish the trade and import of protected species parts from other countries - but not the killing itself, which is the business of that other country. So I guess that agency wants to know if he took home a trophy... PS (since this is the "random and interesting" thread): What is it with laws that were meant to regulate interstate commerce, being used as carte blanche to enforce all kinds stuff that has nothing to do with interstate commerce? I mean in this case it does sort of make sense; it reminded me of the 'Commerce Clause' justification for Obamacare though, which was just ludicrous.

Wait, how exactly does a Zimbabwean lion fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? Smells of a government agency overreaching in order to jump onto a high-publicity case.

...so they embrace micro-totalitarianism. No of course not, if it were formally enforced it would be illegal. (Yay SCOTUS.) So lemme guess, it will be enforced through underhanded intimidation and social sanctions instead...

I thought the background was that he used to be some sort of Nazi sympathizer on RPG Codex in his youth; then as an adult working in the games media became a dogmatic SJW; and at some point during GG quit SJWing and took a pretty reasonable-sounding "neutral/moderate" position. Which could be interpreted as multiple consecutive steps in the same positive direction (totalitarian -> authoritarian -> liberal) rather than flip-flopping. But maybe I'm not aware of the whole story...

In an interview, Ian Miles Cheong explains why he quit the anti-GG / SJW side: There were a lot of things I wished to say while I was a part of the social justice movement that I couldn’t, because of “solidarity” and all sorts of other reasons. Dissent isn’t tolerated in the movement and stepping out of line will earn you whispers behind your back to ostracize you both socially and professionally. There’s always a sense that your position in the movement is precarious and that unless you stand in front of the charge, you’re going to be shut out and treated like a fairweather ally in spite of everything you’ve ever done to support the movement. It’s for this reason that you see people falling over each other to see who can vilify their targets the most. At some point, the targets that get picked are guilty of nothing more than making a joke, or saying something that could potentially be interpreted as problematic, but isn’t actually problematic. I did not experience a sudden epiphany that changed my views overnight. It was gradual, and my stance slowly changed as I opened up to friends who weren’t bought into the prevailing narrative, who saw how deep I was and reached out to pull my head out of the water.

Lol, no. Misrepresenting or outright faking Ben-Gurion quotes sure seems to be a popular hobby among Anti-Zionist bloggers though, so I can't blame you for having picked up one of those canards...

No, not an occupation. A blockade -- in accordance with international maritime law, and with the legitimate purpose of curbing weapon shipments to Hamas from their allies in Syria and Iran. Stop that slander already. The Israeli justice system makes no distinction on the basis of race, neither in Israel itself nor in the West Bank. The only distinction it makes, is between citizens vs non-citizens - like every other country in the world does too. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs; they enjoy full legal equality with Jewish and other citizens. West Bank Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens, obviously don't get to enter Israel whenever they want or vote in Israeli elections - again, same as with every other country in the world. They have their own government (the Palestinian Authority), which fully governs them in area A and in civil matters in area B and some civil matters in area C - and the fact that this government of theirs has stopped holding elections, is not Israel's fault or something that Israel can do anything about. Pretty sleazy then, to demonize Israel for they fact that they don't have the right to vote. More hyperbole. Yes, an interim shared/divided administration of a disputed territory, is complicated and messy. But as your linked scare story examples show, the Israeli democracy is equipped to handle that mess better than most would. The military may be stubborn and unreasonable sometimes, but Israeli civil servants (like in the first link) and judges do rule in favor of Palestinians whose legally owned land and property is being infringed on in Israeli-controlled areas. Obviously, the best thing would be for that messy "shared administration of disputed territory" status to end, and proper borders drawn so that Israel and PA will each have a clearly-defined territory where they have full authority, as peaceful neighbors. But the PA has, for decades now, stubbornly boycotted the peace negotiations which could bring about this result, and instead regularly repeated its oath to its people that it will accept no compromise and will continue to fight until Israel is annihilated, all the Jews murdered or deported, and a Judenrein "Grand Palestine" established on the whole territory of the British Mandate for Palestine minus Jordan. And so, the ****ty situation of the West Bank continues. If you truly believe that then boy, you've swallowed the Antizionist narrative deeply.

They don't say that though. Israel makes no claims at all on Gazan or Lebanese territory, and the only part of the West Bank that it considers Israeli territory is East Jerusalem. The rest of the West Bank is considered "disputed territory" by Israel; subject to the interim administration agreement I mentioned above, but not actually part of any country yet, and will only become so through proper peace negotiations. And the "world's other countries" sure aren't pushing Israel to consider those areas part of its territory, either.

Nonsense, the Palestinians living in West Bank / Gaza / Lebanon are not Israeli citizens, and simply stamping your foot and declaring them so because it fits your argument is a pretty childish thing to do. Gaza is a quasi-country ruled by Hamas. In the West Bank the territorial situation is more complicated, but that doesn't make it a single political entity. It's two entities (Israel and the Palestinian Authority) who have agreed on an interim arrangement (Oslo II Accord) which divided the territory into 3 administrative zones: Area A fully governed by the PA; Area B jointly governed by both sides; and Area C fully under Israeli control. The Oslo treaties also specified that this arrangement would be merely temporary, and that future negotiations should draw proper borders to allow the PA to become a proper country. The Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, are subject to Lebanese law of course.